The Musical Legacy in Contemporary Society

October, 1-5th, 2012 (Moscow, Russia)
From 1st to 5th October 2012 Moscow will host an international workshop conference entitled “The musical legacy in contemporary society”. The conference, supported by the Russian Ministry of Culture, forms part of a celebratory programme dedicated to the 100-year anniversary of the Glinka national museum consortium of Musical Culture. This symbolic event will unite experts from various regions of Russia, as well as Belarus, United Kingdom, German, Italy, Norway, USA, Ukraine, France and Estonia. Musicians from various disciplines, from classical and folk to jazz and popular, as well as specialists in marketing, fundraising, jurisprudence, PR and branding, will all be brought together on a single discussion platform.
Conference participants will include leading musicologists, famous musicians, composers and arts administrators, representatives of international cultural organisatinos, sound recording companies, government departments responsible for culture, art, education, science, information and communications, teachers and students from music and art institutions, staff from museums, archives and the media.
The focus will be on the fate of music in the 21st century. For five days, with the involvement of important musical organisations, the work of academic panels, presentation and discussion sessions will be brought to life.
As part of the conference the Russian Glinka Federation of Music Museums will take its guest on a “museum journey”. On the International Day of the Museum, 1st October, over 30 different music museums and collections will show off its exhibits and vaults, present new projects, introduce wider society, the media and Russian tourist operators to its multifaceted activities and future development plans.
On the 2nd October, as part of the session “Current issues in music education and outreach”, papers will be presented by leaders of cultural institutions.
On the 3rd and 4th October there will be five parallel panels discussing the themes of: “Musical classics: preservation, study and publicity”, “Custodians of legacy: museums, libraries and archives”, “Folk culture”, “Contemporary music culture” and “Innovations in musical collaboration”.
On the 5th October the conference will conclude with a gathering of members of associations of music museums and collections, including Ekaterina Chukovskaia, a leading specialist in the field of authorial rights and intellectual ownership, reader at the Russian State University of the Arts and at the Studio MkhAT, with a PhD in law, who will open the seminar “Authorial rights in the life of a museum”.
The conference guests will include experts of international standing, such as: Susan Vita, Director of the Music Department at the Library of Congress (Washington); Damien Whitmore, Director of Public Affairs and Programming at the V&A Museum and branding specialist with 20 years of experience in the fields of art and media, who led the complete rebranding of the Tate Gallery (2000); Klaus Keil, Executive Director of the Central Editorial Office RISM (Répertoire International des Sources Musicales); Gabriele Rossi-Rognoni, Vice-President of ICOM CIMCIM (International Committee for Museums and Collections of Musical Instruments) and Treasurer of the Medici Family Musical Instruments Collection in the Florence Academy of Fine Arts; and Simon K. Posch, Executive Director of the Music House of Vienna.
Delegates will discuss classical and contemporary issues, revisit current theoretical and historical concepts, learn about new archival sources, important manuscript discoveries and the activities of leading international musical organisations.
The panel “Musical Culture of Today” will bring together a roundtable of composers, performers and musicologists. Amongst those invited are: Bruno Monsaingeon, Yaroslav Sudzilovsky, Viktor Ekimovsky, Vladimir Tarnopolsky, Vladimir Martynov, Aleksei Siumak, Yaroslav Timofeev, Rauf Farkhadov, Ivan Sokolov, Nino Barkalai and others. Representatives of various musical persuasions will discuss particularly critical and topical issues: the state of the composition profession in the 21st century, the interrelation of religion and culture, artist and state, art and money. Jazz, rock, film and electroacoustic music will also be discussed. Alongside contemporary trends, the conference will take a broad look at folk culture, performance practices, as well as technology management and progress in the area of musical culture.
The associated project Glinka Museum and the Centre for New Technologies in the Arts “Art-parkING” will be a useful addition to the academic research and public discussion panels of the conference. As part of the conference Denis Matsuev, Daniil Kramer, Marc de Mauny, Vladimir Babkov, Artem Vargaftik, Andrei Ustinov, Evgeny Safronov, Evgeny Stodushnyi, Martine Joste, Sergey Zhorin, Kirill Serebrennikov and others will tackle issues of production and promotion of musical projects, attracting the public, the fundamentals of broadcasting classical music, the art of concert marketing, fundraising and crowdfunding, as well as protection of artistic rights.
For the first time in Russia we will witness an open debate, “Music in the 21st century. The current reality”, covering the most important issues in contemporary musical life.
The creative element of the Conference will complete the programme, with exhibitions and concerts scheduled. On the 1st October in honour of the International Day of Music, and on 3rd October as part of the conference in the Central Museum of Musical Culture, there will take place musical evenings. On the 4th October in the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory there will be a celebratory concert with the Moscow Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, the Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir, the chamber ensemble “Soloists of Moscow”, winners of international competitions, students and graduates of the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory, with musical instruments of the State Collection played by members of the “Stradivarius Dialogue” project.
For the duration of the conference the Central Museum of Music Culture will host a display and sale of books and sheet music, CD and DVD recordings. “Musical legacy in contemporary society” will be an open interactive discussion forum for formulating new approaches and ways of resolving key challenges in contemporary music culture. Of practical and applied significance, the Glinka Museum Jubilee International Workshop Conference will not only cover new trends and the requirements of contemporary life, but also the main aim of preserving and building musical legacy.
As part of the cultural programme of “Musical legacy in contemporary society”, there will be a Glinka VMOMK exhibition entitled “Muses. Music. Museum”, opening on the 2nd October. The grand opening of the exhibition will take place on 2nd October in the Central Museum of Musical Culture. All museum guests will never forget this event, held in honour of the jubilee of the Glinka VMOMK, where the secret doors of its vaults will open and give visitors the chance to see its most valuable and rare treasures. Everything that had up until now been kept from the eyes of the wider public will be available to all on 2nd October at 4 Fadeev Street. The secrets of over 800 exhibits will be revealed to the public, which have been kept in the museum’s collection every day of its 100-year history.
Legends, fates, names and facts will be brought together around key images of the exhibition: personal effects of Russian composers and of musical theatre. The special fund of the State Collection contains unique and valuable musical instruments, which belonged to D. Oistrakh, T. Dokshitser, K. Erdeli, R. Barshai, M. Rostropovich, memorabilia and music manuscripts of Glinka, Dargomyzhsky, Mussorgsky and Prokofiev. The exhibition “Muses. Music. Museum” will also display rare publications, posters and programmes, pictorial and graphic works by famous artists K. Korovin, M. Vrubel’, I. Bilibin, A. Golovin, N. Rerikh, under-exhibited original photographs with the original negatives, and much more.
The exhibition will present unexpected revelations and discoveries that will take the breath away of even the most experienced curators, and will provide documentary evidence for new additions to the annals of Russia’s great musical life that previously had been presumed complete.